


WhoFic: Drabbles

by bananasandroses (achuislemochroi)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 1X09 (The Empty Child), 1X13 (The Parting of the Ways), 2X00 (The Christmas Invasion), 2X02 (Tooth & Claw), 2X03 (School Reunion), 2X04 (The Girl in the Fireplace), 2X06 (The Age of Steel), 2X08 (The Impossible Planet), 2X09 (The Satan Pit), 2X12 (Army of Ghosts), 2X12 (Doomsday), 3X01 (Smith & Jones), 3X03 (Gridlock), 3X05 (Evolution of the Daleks), 3X08 (Human Nature), 3X09 (The Family of Blood), 3X11 (Utopia), 3X12 (The Sound of Drums), 3X13 (Last of the Time Lords), 4X02 (The Fires of Pompeii), 4X03 (Planet of the Ood), 4X04 (The Sontaran Strategem), 4X06 (The Doctor's Daughter), 4X11 (Turn Left), 4X13 (Journey's End), 4X15 (Planet of the Dead), 4X16 (The Waters of Mars), 4X18 (The End of Time: Part II), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Baby-fic, Character Study, Emotional, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fix-It, Guilt, Individual Drabble Ratings Differ, Introspection, Jealousy, Les Feuilles Mortes, Ninth Doctor Era, Parallels, Self-Hatred, Self-Sacrifice, Suicidal Ideation, Survivor Guilt, Tenth Doctor Era, Time Lord Victorious, Ulterior Motives, Unrequited Love, Varied POVs, dark doctor, self justification
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-17
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-31 13:19:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 79
Words: 10,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8580097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/achuislemochroi/pseuds/bananasandroses
Summary: What it says on the tin.





	1. She Promised Me For Ever

**Author's Note:**

> The title, and the quotes in italics, come (or are adapted) from the Sarah Brightman song _Brown Eyes_.

_I had a dream last night_  
_We never said goodbye_  
_You were here with me_  


When he thought about it (which, although he was trying very hard not to, he couldn't seem to stop doing), he could see why, as Smith, he had fallen so hard for Joan Redfern. She reminded him so much of Rose ...

_No. I don't want to think about Rose. It hurts to know how much I love her and how I can't ever tell her. She knows, I know; but her knowing is not the same as my having told her. It still smarts that I never said the bloody words._

_Let me forget, just for a little while._

Please?


	2. A Caged Dream Of Tears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Falling in love? That didn't even occur to him?"
> 
> "No."
> 
> "Then what sort of man is that?"

He'd spoken (mostly) truth to Joan - that he, too, was capable of all that John Smith had been. He remembered well how Smith had cried, railing against the fate that had taken the "normal" life and love he'd craved so much. Smith was part of him, after all.

Yet he hadn't been completely truthful, either, he knew; there was more. Far more. He didn't like remembering; wanted no remembrance of that Torchwood nightmare where he'd lost Rose. He'd cried then, too; railed, too, against the fate that had stolen his love. 

But what chameleon arch could ever bring _her_ back?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's my theory that the Doctor was hiding at least as much from the pain of losing Rose as he ever did from The Family, and this examines that a little.


	3. Unforgettable, Unforgotten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even here, even now, he remembers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the French comes from the song _Les Feuilles Mortes_ by Jacques Prévert.

_Tu vois, je n'ai pas oublié  
La chanson que tu me chantais._

When he kisses Joan - and this is not something he's admitting to anyone, least of all either Martha or Joan, especially as he is having a hard time acknowledging it even to himself - it is Rose he sees standing there, Rose he is kissing, Rose he is in love with beyond reason and misses so desperately.

It's _always_ Rose.

If the kiss conveys a hint of that desperation, he neither notices nor cares. His eyes closed against reality, he buys into the illusion his mind has provided him - and willingly takes a step further on the treacherous road to madness.


	4. Long Enough?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two golden minutes to say enough to last them lifetimes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The French lyrics come from _Les Feuilles Mortes_ by Jacques Prévert.

_Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s'aiment,  
Tout doucement, sans faire de bruit_

Two minutes, he'd told her. Not nearly enough, but he'll take it.

It's long enough for him to ask about where they were; long enough to disabuse her of any ideas that he'll ever be able to see her again. Long enough for her to mention another Tyler and for him to almost have a heart attack at the idea that she's pregnant and he's the father.

(It's Jackie's; the relief is bitter-sweet.)

Long enough for her to speak of new jobs at Torchwood, and to say she loves him. Long enough for him to ...

Not _nearly_ long enough.

_Et la mer efface sur le sable  
Les pas des amants désunis._


	5. Beyond Compare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He knows, of _course_ he knows; he's not an idiot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The French is from _Les Feuilles Mortes_ , by Jacques Prévert.
> 
> This is set just before Mickey bids farewell to Rose and the Doctor in _The Age of Steel_.

_Oh! je voudrais tant que tu te souviennes  
Des jours heureux où nous étions amis._

I know how it is. I think I've known longer than almost anyone – and _certainly_ longer than either Rose or the fella who stole her from me. I'd honestly thought I'd a chance against the new version of the Doctor, but he turned out to be just as jealously possessive of Rose as his predecessor had been. If not more.

I gave up when I overheard the conversation they had outside the chippy that time we met Sarah Jane. He asked her to give him her “for ever” (something the previous him never did).

How could I compete with that?

_En ce temps-là la vie était plus belle,  
Et le soleil plus brûlant qu'aujourd'hui._


	6. A Judas in Pin-Striped Clothing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Does she know what he did when he accepted that wager?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The French is from the poem _Les Feuilles Mortes_ by Jacques Prévert.

_Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle,  
Les souvenirs et les regrets aussi_

It makes the Doctor wonder, occasionally, whether Rose realises that they were responsible for what happened to them at the Battle of Canary Wharf - and for Torchwood's "Ghost Shift" that opened the void and let out the Cybermen and the bloody Daleks (he flinches, again, remembering; still can't believe the sacrifice of Gallifrey was for nothing).

He wonders if he'll ever forgive himself for accepting that wager - isn't thirty pieces of silver the going rate on Earth for betraying the one who saved you?

For by indulging his lover (worth far more than 10 measly quid), he'd unwittingly betrayed her.


	7. Looking to the Future Whilst Still Dreaming of the Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What could make a Time Lord a willing Dalek victim?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The French is from the poem _Les Feuilles Mortes_ by Jacques Prévert.

_En ce temps-là, la vie était plus belle  
Et le soleil plus brûlant qu'aujourd'hui_

_There's nothing left. There's nothing left. There's nothing left._

The words repeat themselves in his mind _ad infinitum_ , _ad nauseam_. He can't ignore them, because they're true. His people and planet, lost from time for ever. His Rose, the woman he adores beyond all reason - his light against the darkness, the lover who'd never willingly leave him - gone where he cannot reach her.

He's tired, sad, and lonely. He's old, so old; used to have so much mercy, for everyone (including himself). But now? He's desperately tired of it, now; just wants all the pain to end.

"Then _kill_ me!"


	8. In Hora Mortis Nostræ

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He does it because he loves her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is set just before the Ninth Doctor becomes the Tenth.
> 
> The title comes from the _Ave Maria_ , and translates to "at the hour of our death".

He loves her, is in love with her, and he knows it. Has known it for certain since the incident with the gas-masked child in blitzed WWII London and has suspected it for longer still.

And yet he's refusing to act on it - for reasons that made sense to him when he thought of them (but that was then; this is now). But when she re-appears - all golden, shining, bright - with his TARDIS and saves his sorry arse from the Daleks, he finally changes his mind.

_Greater love hath no man_ , that old Earth book says, after all.


	9. You Must Remember This / A Kiss Is Just A Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The difference the Doctor sees between a "genetic transfer" and a kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title comes from the song _As Time Goes By_.
> 
> These drabbles are my attempt at showing the difference the Doctor sees between a "genetic transfer" and a kiss.

_First, the kiss that the Doctor uses as his benchmark. Take your pick where in Season Two it occurs (my money's on somewhere between_ New Earth _and_ Tooth & Claw _):_

The Doctor's brain tells him this is a spectacularly bad idea, but he over-rules it and for once in his long lives acts entirely on impulse. He gently enfolds Rose in his embrace for a moment and then uses a hand to tilt her face up towards him; quickly enough so all she sees is how dark his eyes have become – coloured like roasted (no, burnt) chestnut shells – he swoops to kiss her. She reacts in seconds; what starts as a relatively chaste kiss lengthens and deepens until everything they feel about each other is alive in this moment.

_Second, the "genetic transfer" from_ Smith & Jones _, and why it could never be the same as a kiss for the Doctor:_

He knows what kisses mean to humans now and he really doesn't want to do this, not with anyone who isn't _her_ , but he can't think of an alternative. He kisses Martha on the lips to provide the “genetic transfer” he needs to buy himself time.

Clinically detached in a way he'd never quite managed with Rose, he notices how Martha's lips feel the same, but so very, very different.

He wonders how long it will be before he can see somebody and not see things in them that remind him of _her_. He almost hopes that time comes soon.


	10. More Than Just A Secret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor thinks _Rose_ thinks he's in love with Reinette, and comes to a realisation of his own.

Rose isn't talking to him - he doesn't know why - and although she hasn't asked to go home, the fear of it haunts his waking hours (and the majority of his “sleeping” ones, also).

Something Mickey says, an unguarded comment about Reinette, helps the penny finally drop for him about exactly _why_ Rose isn't speaking to him and, much-vaunted binary vascular system or no, he is all of a sudden finding it incredibly difficult to breathe.

She can't think that, can she? No. Surely not. That's impossible; utterly impossible.

Rose can't _not_ know how he feels about her, can she?


	11. The Curse of the Time Lords

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He must protect himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was thinking about _School Reunion_ , the barriers the Doctor puts up between himself and Rose, and wondered what possessed him to do so; this was the result.
> 
> The title, and any dialogue you recognise, come from the episode.

“I don't age,” you tell her. “I regenerate. But humans decay. You wither and you die. Imagine watching that happen to someone who you—” You cannot complete the sentence, unable to trust her (or yourself) with your feelings, despite everything the two of you have been through together.

She's just a slip of a human girl, who'll be dust long before you regenerate. So, no matter what you feel for her, you have to build your defences even higher; she's breached them so comprehensively already it scares you.

You must protect yourself against a future without her, whatever the cost.


	12. My Heart Is Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Can I go forward when my heart is here?"  
> \- Romeo, _Romeo & Juliet_

Oh, God, _no_.

( _Rose._ )

_ROSE!_

(Can't think, can't move, can't _breathe_.)

Why can't I have this, hmm? Just this one thing? It's not even such a big deal in the general scheme of things - just you and me and what we have between us; that's all I've ever wanted. A hand to hold, if you will.

(I can feel you there, my love, on the other side of that wall. Such an enormous distance between us, but it feels as if you are just inches away.)

You promised me for ever, Rose; it wasn't meant to end so soon.


	13. The Tin Dog, Redux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He'd thought things would be different now. Boy, did he get _that_ one wrong!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during the period between the wall scene in _Doomsday_ and the final good-bye scene at Dårlig ulv Stranden. A Mickey Smith double-drabble.

You are forcing yourself to hide it – battened it down inside you so that not even a suggestion of it remains on your face or in your voice – because you know it's selfish, know that it won't help the broken-hearted woman in front of you, the woman who you are still very much in love with even though you lost her to the Doctor some time ago. The woman who, although she doesn't know it, still holds the power to wound you terribly.

You're hiding your feelings, for her sake; but you'll not be told you cannot feel it, the jealous rage that is so uncharacteristic of you that you're almost ashamed of it.

_It's still_ the Doctor, the blind fury whispers to you, insidious and persuasive; _still, after all this, after everything, it's still_ him _she cries for,_ him _she wants, and not me. Not_ ever _me._

You feel sick to your stomach that you're capable of having these thoughts about someone who you consider your friend; you bury yourself in trying to help rebuild her, since she's suffering so much.

And it's working, until she mentions that _he's_ whispering to her – and then it all begins again.


	14. The Reasons Why

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martha learns the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [_Losing Salvation_](http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=16910) by ThroughanAmberFocus. A Martha Jones quintuple-drabble.

Before she'd been forced to listen in to that conversation between the Doctor and Jack, on Malcassiro, Martha hadn't really paused to think too deeply about the reasons why the Doctor was how he was. He was just “the Doctor”.

She'd _made_ him talk to her on New Earth, knowing only that something was very wrong with the man but not exactly what. She'd expected him to talk to her about Rose, seeing as he'd seemed so cut up by her absence when they were in Elizabethan London (she could have sworn, that time when the two of them were sharing the same bed, that he was anywhere but there, emotionally), but no.

The Face of Boe had spooked him completely, obviously; all he could talk about, with an expression of such sadness etched on his face that she wanted to weep for him, was Gallifrey. From the description he gave her, it sounded like a wonderful place. She wondered how long it was since he'd last spoken of it ... wondered if he'd spoken of it to her. She'd stopped that train of thought instantly; thinking about Rose was not how she wanted to spend her time.

_For someone who isn't here_ , Martha had thought, _Rose sure has a hold on him. On Jack, too, if the scenes I saw with him and the Doctor earlier were anything to go by._ Of course, she knew now exactly what had happened – had realised, finally, that the reason why he was so broken about the fact she wasn't there was because she was trapped somewhere he couldn't reach her. Martha wondered for a second whether Rose was in as much an emotional mess because of it as the Doctor was, before she shivered and decided that, on balance, she didn't want to know.

She'd meant to speak to him about it, after the rocket had left, but everything went to hell in a handbasket shortly afterwards when the Professor turned out to be somebody else entirely. A Time Lord, no less; she remembered well the feeling she'd had at the time, that had never really left her. She'd had the distinct impression that the Doctor would have preferred to have been the last of the Time Lords for ever rather than have to see _him_ again.

And after that there was the Year That Never Was, a year she spent travelling the world like a latter-day John the Baptist, preaching the gospel of the Doctor, the one man capable of saving the world from the insanity of the Master. She'd learned much about herself in that year. She'd also decided to accept the fact that, no matter what she felt for him, the Doctor was still so in love, so obviously in love, with Rose that there was no room in either of his hearts for her.

Rose had taken so much of the Doctor with her when she left; Martha still doesn't know whether she loves or pities him more.


	15. Touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's nothing good about this situation.

He can’t touch her.

There are so very many things he hates about this situation - not being able to bring her back to his universe; the fact that he has to be on the TARDIS rather than on that beach with her; the fact that she is crying over him (him, someone who’s not worth a single tear from the likes of Rose) - but the not being able to touch her is probably the worst of it.

He can’t wipe the tears from her cheeks; can’t hug or kiss her.

He can’t touch her. And it’s _killing_ him.


	16. He Who Would Valiant Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's close to breaking point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is from the hymn by Percy Dearmer, who wrote a modernised version of John Bunyan's poem _Who Would True Valour See_ for the _English Hymnal_ (thanks to [tree_and_leaf](http://tree_and_leaf.livejournal.com) for the info!)

He cries, at night, when he thinks no-one can hear him.

The Master hears him, because he (like all Time Lords) needs little if any sleep. It pleases him to think the Doctor’s broken.

Jack hears him, too. Jack has been having trouble sleeping lately, so he’s awake long after most everyone is in bed. Jack hears him sobbing his heart out, letting the pain that he is living with overwhelm him because he doesn’t know how to bear it any more without losing his mind.

And each and every one of those heart-broken, sobbing cries has a name.

_Rose_.


	17. The Road Not Taken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack still doesn't know if he made the right decision, but it's too late to change it now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A double-drabble, inspired by [catsfiction](catsfiction.livejournal.com). The title is from the poem of the same name by Robert Frost.

The decisions he made that sunny day haunt Jack, even now. He can't stop thinking about whether or not those choices were the right ones; whether he should, against his better judgement, have stayed with the Doctor after all. The heart-broken sobbing cries he heard from the Doctor (a man completely broken; not by the Master, but by love. Jack wonders if the Doctor will ever truly recover from losing Rose) aboard _Valiant_ ring in his ears constantly.

Jack devoutly hopes that Martha is still with him. The thought that she may, after spending the Year That Never Was travelling with time to think, have decided to accept that the Doctor was still so in love with Rose that he'd never love her they way she wanted – and so left him – disquiets him, though.

Jack's an honourable man; and, having been a soldier, he knows what duty is. A huge part of him wanted to go with the Doctor, when he was asked, but he knew his duty lay with his Torchwood team, so that's the choice he made. He's _almost_ happy with the decision he made.

But he can't help but wonder whether it was the _right_ one.


	18. So Much For My Happy Ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You were everything, everything that I wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set post- _Doomsday_ , but refers to events in _Army of Ghosts_. The title and summary are from the song _My Happy Ending_ by Avril Lavigne; this piece was beta-read by [roguewords](roguewords.livejournal.com).

She'd promised him “for ever”, once-upon-a-time on a rocky planet with prehistoric birds flying above their heads. She'd promised what she'd had no way of giving him, tiny little human that she was. On that occasion he'd decided to think with what was in his trousers rather than what was in his head, and for some incomprehensible reason (he was in love with her; that was incomprehensible enough for him, to be in love with a human) he'd gone along with her crazy plan.

The Cyberman was right, in a way; he _was_ proof that emotions destroy.


	19. A Star So Bright You Blind Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The answer to this question has the power to change everything between them, but he _has_ to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during _Army of Ghosts_ , italicised dialogue is from the episode. The title is from the song _Rule the World_ by Take That. Beta-read by [principia](http://principia.livejournal.com), [requialexa](http://requialexa.livejournal.com), and [sensiblecat](http://sensiblecat.livejournal.com).

_“How long are you gonna stay with me?”_

To a casual observer, that query would seem full of your normal nonchalance. Simple, idle curiosity. They'd have to know you very well indeed to recognise how you have schooled your face to show as little as possible; you don't even trust Rose, quite yet, with this most private part of you. Only the maelstrom in your eyes betrays you.

You look at her intently after asking your question, this question that means the world to you (far more than it should, although you're blithely choosing to ignore that fact), the answer to which may change everything between you. Unsure what to expect, you're almost terrified of what she might say, frightened that your reading of this situation may be completely wrong. But she has always known her own mind, and these days is no longer afraid to speak the truth as she sees it, regardless of your fears or hopes.

She beams at you contentedly; your hearts are hammering in your chest (and so loud to you that you think she must hear them).

And when her answer comes? It's your wildest dream and your worst nightmare, wrapped in two simple words:

_“For ever.”_


	20. Presents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was trying to get him to go shopping with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbeta-ed, so any and all mistakes are mine. Written for [voodoo_festival](voodoo_festival.livejournal.com), as part of the [time_x_space](time_x_space.livejournal.com) Christmas ficathon. The prompts were "drinking and verbal slip-ups from Rose, present shopping and other fun things".

“No. No, I am _not_ going shopping with you, and that’s final!”

The Doctor was adamant that, just this once, Rose was not going to win the day. He let her have her own way so often - usually to forestall any ideas she might have about leaving him.

But not this time.

And then she grinned up at him, in the same way she did when they were stuck in that parallel universe together and she’d wanted him to take her to see her not-father - and he was lost.

That’d teach him to suggest Christmas present-buying in June.


	21. Et Tu, Jack?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _En ce temps-là la vie était plus belle,  
>  Et le soleil plus brûlant qu’aujourd'hui._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The French lyrics are from the song _Les Feuilles Mortes_ , by Jacques Prévert.

There is much the Doctor dislikes, in this Brave New (post-Canary Wharf) World, but he’d thought Jack one of the “good guys”. When Jack had been part of Team TARDIS, he’d seen and done enough that he’d thought it impossible for him ever not to be on the side of right. Yet has he read Jack wrong?

Jack, the one person – other than Rose – he thought he could trust. Jack works for Torchwood? Torchwood, who’ve ripped the woman he loves from him for ever; almost destroying the world in doing so?

Betrayal?

That doesn't _begin_ to cover this.


	22. In The Name Of The Rose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Mais mon amour silencieux et fidèle_ / _Souris toujours et remercie la vie_
> 
> (Jack did it all for the Doctor - in Rose's name.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The French is from the song _Les Feuilles Mortes_ , by Jacques Prévert.

I know he doesn’t believe me. Hell, if I were in his place I probably wouldn’t believe me either. But it’s true, and the only way I can sort out the mess those idiots at Canary Wharf left behind. I owe him that much.

He’s the same, yet different; although I don’t know this version of him very well, yet, it’s obvious that he’s still totally in love with Rose (and utterly destroyed by losing her). I don't know what Martha Jones thinks she’s gonna get from him, but if I know the Doctor, it won’t be what she’s looking for.


	23. Belladonna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why did he do what he did?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title comes from the Latin name – _atropa belladonna_ – for the plant deadly nightshade. _Belladonna_ is Latin for “beautiful lady”, and _atropa_ , according to Wikipedia, is thought to be derived from the Greek goddess Atropos, one of the three fates that would determine a life by the weaving of threads to symbolise birth, life and death. Atropos cuts these threads to mark the last. I think the title oddly fitting.

It hadn't been to save her.

There was no real reason for him to have stolen Donna's memories that way. He knew enough to only take what he had to - the Time Lord hybrid consciousness. It wasn't even, as he pretended to himself, that he'd needed to save her mind from collapsing into itself.

Donna had seen him deliberately break his own hearts by doing a "midnight flit", comparatively speaking, leaving _her_ with a crude mockery of him that, well, _wasn't_. And he'd wanted no reminder of what he'd done.

No; everything he had done had been to protect _himself_.


	24. Worth It?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Was it worth it, in the end?

What was the reason you’d given yourself for not allowing Rose to stay with you? Oh, that was it – you’d wanted to keep a part of yourself back, were desperate not to lose yourself in her, because she’d wither and die long before you and you couldn’t bear to watch.

So you pushed her into the arms of the man who is you in every way except the one that matters – and, now you’ll never see her again, is the pain or grief any the less? Of course it isn't.

Was it worth it, in the end?

Was it, _really_?


	25. How I Wonder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s still waiting for her to accept him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title and the quotes in the fic are all from the nursery rhyme _Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star_.

_As your bright and tiny spark,_  
_Lights the traveller in the dark —_

He watches Rose as she sings to her little brother, and notices how – although her voice is soft and tender as she sings Tony to sleep – her eyes are blank and her expression drawn. It’s been weeks now, and he'd hoped that she would at least have begun to start accepting him.

But no.

He still gets the distinct impression that every time she looks at him she remembers that beach and the choice he still thinks was forced upon them. He still can’t believe that she would willingly have chosen him. Perhaps that’ll come with time.

She wasn’t the only one left behind, after all. A life of travelling the stars was his birthright, and that was stolen from him by a man who wears his face. He has Rose; but when Rose cannot see him for him, then it’s a mixed blessing.

But he can feel the earth move beneath his feet, and yearns to be back amongst the stars again, travelling through the universe.

Was losing that universe worth what he has here, now?

_Though I know not what you are,_  
_Twinkle, twinkle, little star._


	26. Worlds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There were thousands of them out there.

There were thousands of them out there, he thought. Hundreds of billions of thousands of parallel worlds.

Worlds where he never lost Rose to that cold white wall, where he’d never met her in the first place; worlds where being with him had killed her before she’d even begun to age, where she’d been changed by that heartbeat of time when she’d held the Vortex inside her and, like Jack, lived without fear of dying.

Worlds where he’d never left her; worlds where he’d had the courage to say what she’d needed to hear.

Worlds where his hearts remained unbroken.


	27. Decision Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whatever else happens, he knows this much.

_Whatever happens. Whatever_  
_what is is is what_  
_I want. Only that. But that._  
— Galway Kinnell, _Prayer_

He makes his decision (well he thinks he does, which is not quite the same thing) within seconds of setting eyes on his clone (and why hadn’t he got rid of that bloody hand of his earlier? Why?)

He decides that he doesn’t care what happens (except he does), he’ll find a way to deal with the situation (drop his clone back in the parallel world when he returns Jackie, perhaps; after all he’s done for them the _least_ they can do is look after him).

It’ll work, he tells himself. It _has_ to — he can’t lose her.

Not again.


	28. The Bitter And The Sweet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For some to live their destiny, others must be left behind.

Every time Jackie looks at the Doctor’s double, there’s a bittersweet feeling attached. He’s a living reminder of the day that the original realised how he could _live_ his life rather than merely exist within it.

He reminds her of the day her daughter chose to be true to herself, refusing to let _him_ dictate how and with whom she should be. He reminds her of the day she helped save the universe, knowing that at the same time her world would change for ever.

But he reminds her above all of the day she chose to let her daughter go.


	29. The First Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He daren’t believe it, not after everything surrounding the Master.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been a long while since I wrote babyfic, but this is part of it.

The first time he feels it, a quivering sensation inside his head that’s reminiscent of a butterfly fluttering its wings, he is standing in the TARDIS talking to Donna – although afterwards he can’t remember a word of their conversation.

He’s inclined, initially, to dismiss it out of hand. But the fact that this comes so soon, relatively speaking, after the debacle with the Master means that he knows ignoring it isn’t a good idea; even so, he’s leery in the extreme these days of anything that’s capable of touching that particular part of his mind.

He’s almost managed to succeed in forcing himself to forget what Rose told him on the beach that day; although when he feels the need to torture himself he unlocks the memory and drenches himself in it for a while, imagining what his life might have been like with the woman he adores and their child. The exercise always brings him pain, but he welcomes pain.

_“The walls have closed.”_

He remembers what he’d told Jack, so many months ago now. The walls are closed, and there is no way he can reach his child. Or its mother.

He doesn’t know which pain is worse.


	30. Making Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When you cannot have what you want, don’t you just make do?

Catching a glimpse of Rose naked but for a towel after her shower, dripping water, has driven all other thoughts from his head save how it would feel to let himself sink into her. He allows his imagination free rein and strokes himself to mental images of her writhing beneath him as he slides into her over and over again.

He’s painfully aroused, his willpower falling victim to his desire for her. He imagines that it’s her hand he can feel dancing up and down the length of him and the thought of it makes his orgasm that much stronger.

  



	31. Stormcrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor: Stormcrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The imagery of the Stormcrow is borrowed from _The Lord of the Rings_ ; "Stormcrow" was a name given to Gandalf by King Théoden in Rohan, a reference to his arrival being associated with times of trouble.

_But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,_  
_With an alien people clutching their gods._  
_I should be glad of another death._  
– T. S. Eliot

Knowledge of things in flux and things that aren’t has been part of him almost as long as he can remember; to know what may be changed and what cannot is nearly as important as the ability to breathe. Sometimes more so.

But things are become more personal. Telling another living soul that their death is imminent and there’s nothing he can do means another little part of himself dies with them. Everybody who dies wears Donna’s face. Everybody who he leaves behind? Rose’s.

_Rose. Rose, I —_

With what stability he has left now fading fast, another death cannot come too soon.


	32. Saying Nothing At All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s given her the best he has to give. He loves her too much not to.

He stands there drinking her in, feasting on her for the first time in years as at the same time he prepares to leave her. He doesn’t say anything for the longest time, which is something of a miracle in itself. But his head, his hearts and his soul are full of everything that he has always held back, for his own sanity.

He’s given her the best of him, kept on giving because he couldn’t find it in him to deny her anything, and still it’s not enough. Still she wants to hear those three words from him, and although he feels the emotion behind them far more deeply than even she knows he doesn’t know how to stand here and give her what she needs and survive it. Saying those words, with their implicit promise of for ever, and then leaving her behind as he knows he must do – that’s the way to a hell of his own making.

 _This is all fixed in time?_ Really _? Not if he can help it ..._

Then again, if the words are what she needs then who is he to deny her? For the road to hell is full of good intentions, after all.


	33. Maelstrom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How to break a Time Lord.

He’s had his ups and downs over the past few years. Sometimes the downs outnumber the ups until he feels smothered in them and sometimes, feeling so high on what passes for happiness, for excitement, he thinks he is unstoppable.

 _Time Lord Victorious_ , indeed. What sort of rubbish is _that_?

His mind is battered, its edges frayed (his naturally mercurial temperament doing nothing to help), and some of the things that have happened to him – loving Rose, losing Rose, finding Rose, losing her a second time, losing his best friend, Martha leaving, Jack leaving, finding out he’s not the last of his kind and then losing that one other person just as his mind was used to somebody there again after all those hollow, lonely years ... somehow it was a minor miracle that he had not lost his mind already.

He’s good at losing things in this incarnation; becoming something of an unwilling expert in it, in fact. And each separate loss of lover or family or friend means a further encroachment on the material fabric of a rapidly-unravelling sanity until it is almost rent in two, the bare threads exposed.

Each separate misery – Rose’s ending (and how he feels the guilt of that, still; he’d known she wanted what he wanted and still he wouldn’t – couldn’t? – let himself give in) and Donna’s (he tries not to think about that; it’s torture to remember what he did to her) and those of countless others – weighs him down further.

Further and further, more and more. Until his brilliant mind can finally take nothing more and the last glittering golden strand – all that’s left between sanity and the whirligig of utter madness – snaps.

And when it happens, it’s so quick he isn’t even fully aware of what’s really going on – until it’s already too late.


	34. Ego Me Absolvo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, it’s less painful to give in.

_ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis_  
– the Sacrament of Penance

What can one say to him? A man who, having given up a second chance with the woman he loves, finds himself in the hour of his death nevertheless compelled by that love, an abiding emotion that for years has held him its prisoner, to seek out that same woman?

He'll know already it's neither sensible nor wise; yet the depth of this feeling is so strong that to betray it again, when this is something for which both body and soul ache, is something he cannot do.

Perhaps he seeks absolution for future deeds in the ashes of his past?


	35. Cri du Cœur

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Is there _anything_ you can’t do?”

He knew it was a mistake right from the off. The second he entertained the notion he’d known it would mean trouble.

But he’d let the germ of the idea stay in his mind, and the advent of the Time Lord Victorious gave him the means to implement his decision.

If only Jack had never given him the idea in the first place. But he had, and if this was the only way to fix the mistakes he’d made ... undo his betrayal of Rose ... so be it.

Space-time co-ordinates in place, he released the handbrake. Next stop?

Dårlig ulv Stranden.


	36. Nothing Else Matters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He nearly loses her. _Again_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After Lady Isobel throws the mistletoe-water we don't see the Doctor or Rose immediately after because the focus goes to her Ladyship and her husband, so I used a bit of artistic licence, and this was the result.

One minute she's in front of him, the next she's fallen behind; he tries to go back for her but as he turns he sees she's out of reach ... and a growing sense of panic starts to choke him as he realises the Wolf will catch her. He can hardly bear to watch.

But then somebody flashes past him, and the next thing he sees is the Wolf covered in something that reeks to high heaven of mistletoe. And Rose, for now, is safe.

He pushes the Wolf from his conscious mind for a few minutes as an over-protectiveness, never far from the surface where Rose is concerned, kicks in and he finds himself moving forward and hurriedly checking her over for injury. The last thing he wants is for her to have been scratched by the Wolf. She seems all right, though, or as close to it as a cursory examination can tell, and for just a few seconds he forgets that there is anybody else but himself and Rose in the hallway; he pulls her roughly into an embrace, brushing his lips over her hair. Rose is safe.

Nothing else matters.


	37. Lost Chances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chances go a-begging because he simply cannot seem to make his move.

He sits, lost in thought, a mere hand’s breadth away from the woman he is fixated upon to the detriment of his mental health.

He doesn’t seem able to get past his neuroses, everything he hates about himself, and just ask her the question that has been on the tip of his tongue for months now. Ask her whether she feels, or could feel, anything for him other than friendship. Ask her whether he is wasting his time dreaming about her or whether he has any chance at all.

And then she speaks, and yet another chance is lost.


	38. Icy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s cold here, all right, but that’s everything to do with the surroundings in which they find themselves – and nothing at all with what he feels about her.

The skirt of his coat billows around his legs from the force of the wind, his hair’s a mess and his eyes are watering. He doesn’t feel the cold like she does, but _still_.

It’s cold here, colder than he thinks she realises, and he thinks about shrugging himself out of his coat and handing it to her. One surreptitious look at her, however, and he changes his mind.

None of it matters a damn, anyway, because _she_ needs him to be here right now and what she needs, he gives, no matter the cost.

But isn’t that what love is?

  



	39. Reunited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tangled bodies, tangled thoughts, tangled lives.

They lie wrapped around each other on the bed, covered only with a sheet and exhausted in that way only lovemaking can bring.

He should be concentrating on how to give her the words she needs to hear, or how he can best help her adjust to the fact that being with him means never seeing her Mum or Pete or her baby brother again.

 _Should_ be, but isn't.

Although his mind is busy doing both, his focus is on how beautiful she is, the woman in his arms, and how much and for how long he has missed her.


	40. Cannon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every journey, it is said, begins with the first step.

It wasn’t even her idea, the dimension cannon, in the end; it had come from another Torchwood department entirely. But after years of trying to carve herself a life in this strange place, and never quite managing it, when they’d told her what they thought it could do she’d been keen to volunteer.

If it worked, and she’d _make_ it work, there was a fighting chance she’d be back where she belonged, back in a world that still held a place that was hers to fill.

Back to her lonely, broken Doctor, the man she loved and missed so much.


	41. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was inspired by seeing a parallel between the Doctor’s behaviour on the beach in _Journey’s End_ and his treatment of Harriet Jones in _The Christmas Invasion_.

Six words. Just six. Six words in which he comes the closest he’s been in years to admitting to somebody just how much he needs them. And although he needs Rose more now than ever, the treacherous little voice in his head keeps telling him how he doesn’t deserve her and how, now his double is “a completely new man”, he should give her up for her own good.

She knows how he feels about her. She _has_ to know. He’s done everything but say it.

And yet —

“He needs you. That’s very me.”

Just six. Six words.

Six.


	42. Real

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The stars were out in force tonight.

The stars were out in force tonight. Galaxy upon galaxy; a Cheshire cat of a moon in its first quarter hung smiling down amongst them. In the far western sky, the light had not yet fully faded; the overall effect was of twilight in late summer. A young woman sat, holding photographs in her hand and seeming to be lost in thought, looking out at the sight before her. 

Not bad, in truth, for something that wasn't real.

Well. 'Not real' stretched the truth a little; it was real somewhere – probably – just not here. But as far as the young woman was concerned, who sat beside a not-entirely-real window in the only room of its kind in existence, it was a more than decent approximation of reality. Just being there reminded her of how far she had had to come, how much of herself she had relinquished to achieve it, and how different the person she was now was compared to the person she had been. 

She looked down at the photographs – of a woman with blonde hair, a man with balding deep copper hair, and a small child who looked to be a mixture of the two – and shifted in her seat. She'd never see these people again; she tightened her grip for a second at the thought before moving away from the window to drop them on a desk. Her facial expression changed as her fingers moved briefly to touch the faces on the photographs before she shook herself slightly, appearing to compose herself, and walked through the door into an oddly cavernous corridor.

This was it, she thought; this was her new beginning. She couldn't let herself ruin it now. That corridor would lead her to where, somewhere, stood the person for whom she had forsaken everything.


	43. Anything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's the Doctor. If _he_ can't do it ...

I’m the Doctor. (I can do anything.)

I can save the universe from Daleks. Win the Time War. (And lose everything, everyone, I’ve ever known: Romana. Susan. Leela ... So very many.)

(Couldn’t save Rose.)

I can save the Earth, my home now Gallifrey’s gone, beyond the reckoning of it. From the Racnoss, Carrionites and the Master.

From Daleks, over and over, and Cybermen. (And lose the woman I adore.)

I can’t save the woman (so like Rose) turned to stardust. I couldn’t stop them, either of them, from falling.

But I can bring them back.

 _I can do anything_.


	44. Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He rarely sleeps, but when he does ...

You see it, repeatedly, in your nightmares.

The same scene over and over, and you can’t change anything; you can only watch, a horrified spectator, as the events unfurl exactly as you remember them.

She was falling, falling into the Void; and all you could do was hold on tight to your clamp against the wall (for what was the point of both of you falling into Hell? How could you save her if you were falling, too?) and watch her disappear.

The sound of your scream when she lost her hold on that lever will haunt you for ever.


	45. One Last Chance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She wants something of him to hold on to, for the lonely times ahead.

_"And I suppose... if it's one last chance to say it..."_

You catch your breath, trying to stop the tears; you don't want his last memory of you to be of you weeping and inconsolable. You _almost_ manage it.

You've just said you love him; and not for the first time. "Quite right too" his response, as it's always been hitherto; a private joke between you to the end.

But if he will just say the words himself, as he often almost has, you'll have something concrete to sustain you through the darkness that you _know_ is coming.

_"Rose Tyler..."_


	46. Christmas Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I didn’t know that Time Lords even celebrated Christmas.”

She’d given him a kiss for a present; thanks to all the business surrounding the Sycorax and the Doctor’s post-regeneration collapse there’d been no time on Christmas Eve to buy anybody anything.

Surprisingly enough, the Doctor had loved it. (She’d wondered if his previous self would have been _quite_ so happy, but decided against dwelling on it.)

“This is the best Christmas I’ve ever had,” the Doctor had said gleefully, bouncing around as this new version of him tended to do. “The best present ever.”

“I didn’t know that Time Lords even celebrated Christmas.”

“That, Rose, is _not_ the point.”


	47. Mixed Messages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the Reinette incident, the Doctor reflects on his relationship with Rose.

So, after telling Rose she can 'spend the rest of her life' with you, that you'll 'never leave her behind', what do you do?

You panic completely about what you've just said, lose your head and run away (metaphorically at least), trying to put distance between you and the feelings you have for this strangely beguiling girl which are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

She is more important, already, to you than she ought to be; you need to put space between you _now_ , before she's so utterly necessary that you will do, say or change anything to keep her.


	48. That Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's unwilling, just now, to take his eyes off her.

You know that the way you look at her when she's decided where you're going next (and oh-how-grateful you are that she hasn't dropped you as you so richly deserve) is that of a man in love looking at the woman he adores.

You're unwilling just now to take your eyes off her, this precious creature who has agreed to stay with you (although you'd have to say you're the last person who deserved it).

Perhaps in this body you'll do, at last, what your previous self had never managed – dare to verbalise what she is to you.


	49. Believing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You've only ever believed in her.

How can you move on, when everything you see brings up memories of your past? A past you know (when you're being honest with yourself, you _know_ ) you'd break the laws of time itself to change - to bring _her_ back - if only you could.

"I can do anything," your future self will say, but even then you'll not believe it's possible. Belief is very strong with this incarnation, a vitally important part of you; if you believe in yourself, you'll make it happen.

But then again you've never really believed in yourself, have you? You only ever believed in _her_.


	50. Stuff of Legend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's the Doctor, she's Rose.

She's back, the woman he's so deeply in love with it scares him. He cannot let her out of his sight, terrified that if he does he'll lose her again. He can't get her back just to lose her again so soon ...

(He's the Doctor, she's Rose; together, they're the stuff of legend. Oh, how he's missed this; missed _her_.)

He knows he'll lose her, one day. It's inevitable. But he's buried the knowledge beneath a determination to love her, with all he has, for as long as he can.

He's been given a second chance.

He'll not waste it.


	51. A Moment Sought In Air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He doesn't need to share Rose with anybody unless he chooses, now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I asked myself the question “was re-fuelling the TARDIS really the only reason the Doctor went to Cardiff?” and this was the result. The title comes from the poem [_Range-finding_](http://www.bartleby.com/119/17.html) by Robert Frost. According to my count, it's a double-drabble.

When he sleeps now, it is in Rose's room, which still smells of her (he has the TARDIS to thank for that, he supposes). But it is better than using his room; that still reminds him too much of the last time they made love. He still cannot bear to go anywhere near it.

Her room is a refuge, a bolt-hole for when the pain of remembering hurts too much and he needs somewhere to hide until he can bear it again. He's made absolutely certain that Martha sleeps on the opposite side of the TARDIS, so she'll never find this sanctuary.

He knows that she must find it very strange how his life seems to be ruled by the contents of this one particular room, but it doesn't bother him at all what she thinks about it; he doesn't give a damn what it looks like to anyone else, really. It's his ship, and his rules, and no-one's business anyway what he does. He doesn't have to share Rose with anybody unless he chooses, now; and he will never choose to share her with Martha.

But he _could_ with Jack; Jack had loved her, too.

To Cardiff, then.


	52. All My Love To Long Ago

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He reminds you, beyond the point of endurance, of who and what you used to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was thinking about what might make the Doctor run away from Jack after deliberately going to Cardiff to see him, and this was the result. The title comes from a line spoken by the Tenth Doctor in the Children in Need special _Time Crash_. According to my count, it's a double-drabble.

So which do you miss most, Doctor, if you're completely honest? The woman you love? Or the parts of you she took with her when she went?

The man you were with (because of?) her, the sort of man that the person you have now become finds it almost impossible to believe that you could ever let yourself be again.

Jack's the only one left who can understand what you're going through. How much you love her, and just how exquisitely painful each day without her has been for you. He loved her, too; possibly even as much as you do. And yet that link between you, that shared agony, which should be bringing you together, has done nothing except tear you apart.

And why?

The man Rose brought back from the dead will live for ever; the woman who promised she'd never leave you may as well be dead. You can't help but hate him a little for that.

He isn't "wrong". Not really - as you very well know.

That's not why you cannot bear to look at him, either; it's because he reminds you, beyond the point of endurance, of who and what you used to be.


	53. She Knows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even if he doesn't say the words, she knows.

_If they get back in touch... if you talk to Rose... just tell her... Tell her I…_

He loves her. Even if he doesn't say the words, she knows. Oh, she knows.

If she weren't too old to believe in clichés borrowed from "once upon a time", she'd call him her Sir Galahad.

But she is, and she doesn't, and each is too deeply in love with the other to care much about labels anyway. He cannot hide his adoration of her any longer; just as well, really, since everything he says or does screams it.

And every time he asks her how long she'll stay with him — what answer is there for her but "for ever"?

_Oh, she knows._


	54. I Can't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He just can't make himself follow through.

_That's just it; don't you see, Donna? Can't you understand?_

He'd go back to that cold, white room in a heartsbeat, and do whatever necessary to save her from being torn from him. Even though he knows doing so would bring Reapers – or worse.

When he misses her most he considers doing it anyway, and hang the consequences.

He just can't make himself follow through. (Coward? Any day.)

He loves her deeply, misses her desperately. But even for her – the woman he loves – he cannot do it.

_I can never go back, I can't! I just can't, I can't..._


	55. She

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He daren't hope.

_Doctor - she is returning._

He doesn't dare hope that Lucius could be referring to Rose. He's surprised that no-one has picked up on that name yet – he must be broadcasting it less than usual, which is a surprise given that she so rarely leaves his thoughts.

There's no way it can be Rose. There's no way back from where she is, not without the deaths of trillions. He knows this, but the knowledge doesn't make the pain any less bitter.

So since it isn't Rose, can't ever be Rose, then who in Chaos' name _is_ it?

_She? Who’s she?_


	56. For Remembrance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray you, love, remember_
> 
> _Hamlet_ , Act IV scene V

He never brought _her_ here.

He knows he didn't; he'd remember, given what happened the last time he met the Ood. But he sees her everywhere, anyway; an ethereal ghost, created through his desperate longing for her, he suspects only he can see.

(Donna's not mentioned anything unusual; although they've only travelled together a short while, he already knows how well she can use her mouth.)

She isn't dead – she _isn't_ , he'd _know_ – but, although he cannot forget her, he wears rosemary for remembrance regardless.

Donna doesn't ask.

There's no need; the haunted look on his face speaks for him.


	57. For Thoughts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts_
> 
> _Hamlet_ , Act IV scene V

_“Can I t—?”_

The first thought – highly irrelevant, but then that’s typical of him – that crosses his mind is that her jumper (he can see it, its arms are longer than the jacket she’s wearing against the biting cold) is purple. The colour of pansies.

Pansies for thoughts; so there’s relevance after all – she’d not been out of _them_ since he’d lost her.

He’s been trying to find a way through since then, but this conversation will have to do. He badly wants to touch her just one last time, so he can sear the feeling of it on his memory, but he knows he can’t.

She lifts her hand to touch his face. That tiny action is almost enough on its own to break him, and for a few seconds the pain of it is almost enough to over-rule his common sense; almost enough for him to take the risk and try to come through anyway.

He can see the others in the background, and is grateful that they’ve given her this much privacy. With what he wants to – _has_ to – tell her, an audience is the last thing they need.

_“I’m still just an image. No touch.”_


	58. Reminiscent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He'd not expected her ever to _use_ it.

Of course! She’d given him her phone when she’d left. He’d just dropped it on the console and promptly forgotten it; given the terms of their parting, he’d not expected her ever to _use_ it.

He’d behaved like a heel to her – he’d been shell-shocked still by what had happened at Canary Wharf, was missing Rose like nobody’s business, but that hadn’t excused his behaviour.

After a while, they’d managed an uneasy truce. But she hadn’t been the one he’d wanted with him – and they’d both known it. Martha wasn’t Rose, _couldn’t_ be Rose.

And that was their main problem.


	59. Running

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s getting to be something of a habit.

That’s twice he’s run, now.

It’s getting to be something of a habit in this regeneration, running away from things and people and situations that he just doesn’t want to have to deal with.

The idea of Jenny being his child, and looking so reminiscent of _her_ but not being a part of _her_ is something he just cannot bear. And he didn’t even want to get started on the memories she woke in him of everything he lost with Gallifrey. So he does to her what he did to Jack.

He bolts, choosing to run rather than face reality.


	60. Still Believing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _This fruit doth make my soul to thrive;  
>  It keeps my dying faith alive_
> 
> The Apple Tree Carol

In the year following Canary Wharf – and again through The Year That Never Was – Rose never quite left him.

He’d not let her.

He’d cocooned her in his memory, stubbornly refusing to forget either her or what they were to each other. She was always somewhere in the back of his mind, talking to him; where he could draw comfort from her when there was no other to be found.

Small wonder Donna found getting him to give away any of his Rose, after that first “still lost”, was about as easy as chasing a raindrop out of a hurricane.


	61. The Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whatever it took, she’d do it.

_“Rose is coming back. Whatever else is happening, isn’t that_ good _?”_

When he hadn’t answered immediately, she wasn’t sure he’d actually heard her. And when he’d looked up, the expression on his face suggested that his mind was with _her_. Then he’d looked at her properly, with something glistening in his eyes that looked suspiciously like tears, and smiled.

“Yeah.”

She was so pleased to see something going right for him for once, seeing him happy – _truly_ happy – again, that she promised herself she’d do whatever ended up necessary to keep things that way.

Whatever it took, she’d do it.


	62. Fear Remains With Me, But I Value Her Life More

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reason _why_.

The terror of it is right with him, the fear of what losing her a second time will do to him. But even as the weight in the bottom of his stomach makes its presence felt, he forces himself to acknowledge that this is how it must be. It’s best this way. Now all he has to do is convince himself, and there’s for ever to do it in.

He loves her more than everything in the universe put together, and he knows he has to love her enough to let her go.

Without him, she’ll never become collateral damage.


	63. The Time Lord's Dilemma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can he do this?

All of him - body, mind, and whatever passes for a soul - is screaming at him not to do what he believes he must. His mind, responsible for this plan in the first place, whispers pernicious thoughts through his head about how he’s better with her.

Can he do this to her?

He knows exactly what he’ll be without her. He will be someone who drowns a mother and her children; who traps small girls in mirrors. This much is undeniable: he needs her more than she’ll ever need him.

But he’ll somehow persuade himself that his double needs her _more_.


	64. A New Reality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alone he can do so little; together they can do so much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta-read by [glory_jean](http://glory_jean.livejournal.com); any and all remaining mistakes are my own.
> 
> This is slightly AU for _The Impossible Planet_ , in that the Doctor doesn’t end up going down to the Pit to look for the TARDIS. A “what-might-have-been” fic, you could say. The summary is based on a quote by Helen Keller.

He should have done what she suggested – taken the two of them elsewhere. But he didn’t, and now they are reaping the consequences. The TARDIS is lost, for ever.

But it could have been so much worse, and he still has Rose. Rose, the woman who’s become impossibly important to him in an absurdly short amount of time. Rose, who has so recently heard him confess how strongly he feels about her.

So now they have to live the slow path. He can do that, he swears he can. So long as he has Rose?

He can do _anything_.


	65. Everlasting Peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He couldn’t save Rose. So he doesn’t _want_ to save himself.

Water gushes in, swirling down; drowning the Racnoss and threatening to drown him, too.

He’s forgotten how to stop himself, and there’s no-one here to tell him – not that he’d listen, anyway.

There’s one person who’d made his cursed experience bearable, even if he’d never been capable of adequately verbalising exactly what she means to him. But she’s gone; he’ll never see her again ... and it _hurts_.

He loves her so much – and without her, what’s left?

The water rises fast; too fast. He can’t escape it. He closes his eyes, breathing slowly, until – at last – there’s no more pain.


	66. Whisper In The Wind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Rose?"

“Rose ...”

She’s asleep and it’s but a whisper, yet she hears it nevertheless and suddenly she’s wide awake. It insinuates itself into her mind, building and building until it floods every sense. It’s as if he were truly there.

_You’re hearing it because you want to. He’s not here._

“Rose ...”

The whisper again. He’s calling her. But how? _Why_?

_Don’t let your mind fool you. He isn’t really here._

Her whole body reacts; she feels alive again in a way she hasn’t been since she was stranded here. Does it mean she can get back to him?

“Rose ... Rose ... _Rose_.”


	67. Internal Connections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're connected, even now.

She can hear him there, in her mind, the same way she has always done since Satellite Five. A “psychic bond”, the Doctor calls it; she doesn’t care what it is called, or how it works, if it means she’ll never leave him – or he her.

In so many ways it’s as if she had never been torn from his side at all, but what she experiences isn’t all sweetness and light. His agony over losing her hurts more than anything. But engulfing it, and strengthening her, is the deep and abiding love for her she’d always suspected was there.


	68. Her Name Was Rose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donna Noble, with her uncanny knack of asking the right question at just the right time.

_“Your friend. What was her name?”_

He’d almost made it. Had almost managed to hold on long enough to get back into the Vortex, a place where he could finally give voice to his grief, and rage, and pain.

But no.

Donna Noble, with her uncanny knack of asking the right question at exactly the right moment, had put the kibosh on that. Maybe that was a good thing; maybe if he let the emotions came to the surface now he could manage to keep some control over them; of himself.

Or not.

_“Her name was Rose.”_


	69. Nowhere Else

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s nowhere else she’d rather be.

She’s never been more scared in her life – and _that’s_ saying something. Even the Cybermen-Dalek stand-off at Canary Wharf wasn’t this terrifying.

The man she loves more than anything, the only one who’s capable of figuring out how to fix this whole mess, is here. She knows him well enough even now to know that he’s desperately frightened, and he’s clinging to her hand so tightly that it hurts.

Yes, she’s frightened. No, she can’t see how they’re going to get through this alive.

But despite all this, there’s nowhere else she’d rather be.


	70. All We Need

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All you can do is scream her name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title comes from [_My life closed twice before its close_](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/my-life-closed-twice-its-close-96) by Emily Dickinson; the quote at the beginning is the Doctor, from _World War Three_.

_“I could save the world but lose you.”_

You hadn’t thought you’d need to say it, this time. You hadn’t expected anything to go wrong. You had gone blundering in, like you usually do, and look where that has brought you.

_Why didn't you leave the bloody lever alone? Yes, it would have been tidier, and far safer, to finish the job at the first attempt; but I'd have taken just about any other outcome than this. Oh, Rose. What have you done?_

And all you can do is scream her name as she disappears from your universe for ever.


	71. No First Chance, Let Alone A Second

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can’t always get what you want.

He discovers very quickly what sort of a man he is where Rose is concerned. Regeneration didn’t change how he feels about her; he ensured that.

Sitting at the dinner table he could stare at her for hours and still not get enough. For a few fleeting minutes he lets himself believe that he could have what he’s craved for _years_ : to be part of a family.

To _belong_.

But then Rose mentions Harriet Jones. Reality crashes back in, and yet again he’s forced to deny himself his hearts’ desire. The thing he wants above all others.

The one adventure he cannot have.


	72. Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time passes.

Time goes by. So slowly that you can almost hear the cogs in your brain, but fast enough that you never get bored. You take the odd companion, now and then; never more than one or two journeys before you move on and leave them behind.

You haven’t been on Earth since – well, does it need saying? The memories, to a Time Lord, are still fresh; being here without _her_ is torture.

Yet here you are. And, standing in front of you, is someone you had never expected to see again.

‘ _Impossible_.’

It _has_ to be.

‘Hello, Doctor.’

Doesn’t it?


	73. May The Wind Be Ever At Your Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields. And, until we meet again, may God hold you in the hollow of his hand.’
> 
> Why the Doctor travels alone.

You can’t do this any more.

Each good-bye is more and more painful; each takes a little more of your soul from you and, although you know your life is the richer for the experience, the aching loneliness chafes a little more each time when you are forced to acknowledge it again.

You cannot stomach another farewell.

Not after Donna, after what you had to do to ensure she lived. And after Rose? You still struggle to accept what you did to the woman you love. Another parting, like that last one?

No, after Rose you travel alone; no more good-byes.


	74. The Proof's in the Testing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You love her; that’s why you’re letting her go. Even when you’re not sure she’ll come back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Explores the motivation for the Doctor sending Rose into the parallel universe.

You know what she _said_ , but you’re not completely sure she meant it.

You’ll test her, that’s what you’ll do; you’ll send her into that parallel universe, where she’d have her parents and everything else she’d ever wanted, and you’ll see if she comes back.  You don’t think she will.  It’ll be hard, for you to forget her, but you’ll manage.

‘Doctor?’

You spin ‘round to look at her, struck dumb momentarily with disbelieving joy.

‘I made my choice a long time ago, and I’m never gonna leave you.’

She’d come back.  Maybe you can believe ‘for ever’, after all?

  



	75. Tested (And Not Found Wanting)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's testing me, that's all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rose's thoughts on why the Doctor has sent her into the parallel universe. A companion piece to _The Proof's in the Testing_.

He’s testing me.

He’s given me a choice: I can have one, or the other, but not both.

The complete family (mother, father, oldest friend) that I’d always wanted. Or him, the man with haunted eyes and impossible hair.

The catch? Whoever I choose: Mum, who’s sacrificed so much for me; the man who loves me enough to willingly die for me? I lose the other for ever.

_The ties that bind can choke you in the end._

I’ll always choose him; I honour my promises.

‘I made my choice a long time ago, and I’m never gonna leave you.’


	76. For Better Or Worse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can’t quite believe this is happening.

‘That’s me. When we first met.’

You’re looking at him, tears in your eyes, refusing to believe he would send you away without even asking. _Again_.

You know all about his huge inferiority complex; you’ve always known. But you also remember his promises: that he’d never leave you behind. That you could spend _the rest of your life_ with him.

_What’s happened, to make you change so much? Why don’t you want me any more?_

And what he says to you next makes it even worse:

‘And you made me better. And now you can do the same for him.’


	77. Saving The World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You’d gone in without a plan, because usually that works out just fine, and it’s ended in catastrophe.

_‘I could save the world, but lose you.’_

You hadn’t thought you’d need to say it, this time. You hadn’t expected anything to go wrong. You had gone blundering in, like you usually do, and look where _that_ has brought you.

_Why didn’t you leave the bloody lever alone? Yes, it would have been tidier, and far safer, to finish the job at the first attempt; but I’d have taken just about any other outcome than this._

_Oh, Rose. What have you done?_

And all you can do is scream her name, as she disappears from your universe for ever.


	78. Remembrance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He'd never brought _her_ here.

_‘There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray you, love, remember’_  
 _Hamlet_ , Act IV scene V

  


He never brought _her_ here.

He knows he didn't; he'd remember, given what happened the last time he met the Ood. But he sees her everywhere, anyway; an ethereal ghost, created through his desperate longing for her, he suspects only he can see.

(Donna's not mentioned anything unusual; although they've only travelled together a short while, he already _knows_ how well she can use her mouth.)

She isn't dead. She _isn't_ , he'd _know_. But, although he cannot forget her, he wears rosemary for remembrance regardless.

Donna doesn't ask.

There's no need; the haunted look on his face is answer enough.


	79. The Fickleness of Memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Memory fades, eventually. And what if all you have are memories?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set somewhere in the gap between _The Runaway Bride_ and _Smith & Jones_.

That unfinished sentence still haunts you, and every waking hour (and for you, there are many) you spend searching for a way to finish it. That was a distraction for you, anyway, to draw your attention away from the fact that there are other things you are forgetting that you would much prefer to remember.

For example, you can remember the agonised expression on _her_ face when she realised that you couldn't come for her. That she really _was_ stuck there.

You can remember that with a painful clarity, but have forgotten the exact feel of her lips under yours.


End file.
